Surgical needles have been long known in the medical and surgical arts for use with sutures to join tissue at incisions, tears, cuts, and the like. A conventional surgical needle typically consists of a shaft member having a sharpened distal piercing tip and a proximal end having a cavity for mounting the end of a surgical suture. Surgical needles are known to have various configurations including straight needles and curved needles.
Surgical needles are required to have various performance characteristics. The surgical needles must have good ease of penetration, and, minimal resistance to being pulled through tissue. In addition, it is important for the needle shaft to be resistant to buckling or bending as the surgeon inserts the needle into tissue. Generally speaking, the force required to push a needle through tissue will vary with the particular type of tissue, e.g., skin, muscle, arteries, veins, internal organs, tendons, cartilage, etc. Surgical needles may have blunt tips, piercing tips, cutting tips or combination piercing/cutting tips.
When using a surgical needle, it is a common practice for the surgeon or physician to grasp the needle with a conventional needle holder. A conventional needle holder typically has a pair of opposed, moveable elongated jaws connected to a pair of handles. The jaws are hinged and moveable with respect to each other and movement is controlled by movement of the handles. When grasping a needle, it is important that the needle not slip within the jaws of the needle holder while the surgeon is attempting to penetrate tissue or pull the needle through tissue. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,484 discloses a needle having superior ease of penetration with a configuration which provides excellent resistance to slipping and twisting when grasped by a needle holder. The needle disclosed in that patent has a configuration referred to as an "I-beam", however, the cross-section of the needle is actually rectangular.
There is a constant search in this art for needles having improved resistance to bending or buckling while retaining a desirable configuration to reduce the drag on the needle as it is being forced or pushed through tissue.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a surgical needle having a true I-beam configuration.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a surgical needle having a configuration which provides improved resistance to bending and buckling while not increasing the drag force required to pull the needle through tissue.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a surgical needle which is easy to grasp and to hold securely in a conventional needle holder.